France suspends 4 players for World Cup mutiny; Nicolas Anelka hit with 18-game ban

France’s Anelka banned 18 games for Cup protest

PARIS — The French soccer federation suspended four players, including Nicolas Anelka for 18 games, for a World Cup mutiny that was criticized by President Nicolas Sarkozy and underlined an embarrassing first-round exit.

The French Football Federation on Tuesday also suspended former captain Patrice Evra (five games), Franck Ribery (three games) and Jeremy Toulalan (one game). Eric Abidal, the fifth player at the four-hour hearing, escaped punishment.

All 23 players on France’s World Cup squad boycotted a training session in South Africa to protest Anelka’s expulsion after he insulted then-coach Raymond Domenech during a 2-0 loss to Mexico.

But the federation called only the five players who played a leading role in the strike. Ribery and Anelka — whose locker-room outburst triggered the protest — sent lawyers. Ribery, who was vice captain at the World Cup, did not attend the hearing because Bayern Munich refused to release him before its opening Bundesliga game Friday.

Only Evra, Abidal and Toulalan attended the hearing, federation official Yann Le Guillard said. Domenech was at the hearing along with then-federation president Jean-Pierre Escalettes and assistant coach Alain Boghossian.

“The players seemed sincerely sorry for what happened,” said former France team director Jean-Louis Valentin, who resigned when the players refused to take part in a practice and instead sat in the team bus under the eye of cameras from around the world. “I felt they were very affected by that event. It’s obvious that if they had to do it again, they wouldn’t do it.”

Valentin attended the hearing as a witness and was the only one to comment later. He expressed sympathy for what he said were chastened players. He said “everybody has the right to a second chance.”

France was eliminated after the first round without winning a game. But it was the players’ actions, including the sit-in on the bus, that drew widespread condemnation from the public, Sarkozy and other political leaders.

The players already have been punished financially, with the federation withholding their World Cup bonuses. Lilian Thuram, a former player for France and a member of the federation council, said Evra should never play for France again.

France coach Laurent Blanc dropped all 23 players for his first game in charge of the team — a 2-1 loss to Norway last week. He’ll be without Anelka, Evra, Ribery and Toulalan for the 2012 European Championship qualifier against Belarus in September.